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History
Europe was the birthplace of the “modern” crayon, a man-made cylinder that resembled contemporary sticks. The first such crayons are purported to have consisted of a mixture of charcoal and oil. Through time, powdered pigments of various hues replaced the charcoal. It was subsequently discovered that substituting wax for the oil in the mixture made the resulting sticks sturdier and easier to handle and to use.
The world's largest manufacturer and inventor of wax crayons is Crayola LLC (formerly Binney & Smith Inc.), the manufacturer of Crayola crayons, which are made of paraffin wax, a petroleum product. Soybean oil can also be used to make crayons, although this is not as common. The brand's first box of eight Crayola crayons made its debut in 1903, and was the first non-toxic crayon, aimed at children. The crayons were sold for a nickel and the colors were: black, brown, blue, red, purple, orange, yellow, and green. The word Crayola was created by Alice Stead Binney, wife of Edwin Binney, who took the French words for chalk, craie, and oily, oléagineux, and combined them.[1]
Art
Some fine arts companies such as Swiss Caran d'Ache manufacture water-soluble crayons. With or without water, once applied to media the crayons' colors are easily mixed.
Jean-François Millet is an example of one artist who used conté crayon in his work.[2][3]
References
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